Do Dodgers fans have to root for either Giants or Cardinals in NLCS?

San Francisco Giants players celebrate their National League division series-clinching victory over the Washington Nationals in Game 4 on Tuesday. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

Ugh, now for the most difficult assignment for any blue-blooded Dodgers fan -- which team to pull for in the National League Championship Series.

The San Francisco Giants or St. Louis Cardinals?

Advertisement

>

It's like deciding your preferred way to die. There aren't two other National League teams less admired and just generally more despised by most Dodgers fans. Let's see, Arsenic or Cyanide?

There are the Giants, the Dodgers' historic rivals. It's not the team itself that most now find so appalling, but their fans. It's pretty difficult not to like and respect Giants Manager Bruce Bochy. Their top player, Buster Posey, is a straight enough shooter.

Their chip-on-the-shoulder fans, however, are difficult to be in the same room with for more than, oh, two seconds. They're cultured! They drink wine! They have cool bridges!

They try really hard to talk themselves into stuff, but they can't let go of their Los Angeles envy. It's like they spent half their life living in a fog.

People in L.A. actually like to visit the Bay Area. We buy their sourdough bread, chocolates, microchips and, yes, wine. Then we go home and soak up more sunshine.

There's an obnoxious quality to a Giants fan that they somehow both recognize and revel in. Pretty sure you're not allowed to be an insufferable Giants fan unless you're also a member of the Narcissists of America Club. All a thin veil to their L.A. inferiority complex.

Then there are the Cardinals, a team we've all had our fill of around here. And sure, a large part of it is they've knocked the Dodgers out of the playoffs in consecutive years.

Yet it's more than that, it's that sanctimonious attitude of both their players and fans. You know, because they're this wondrous mid-market team that does things the "right" way. So if Adrian Gonzalez actually acts happy over a big hit, the Cardinals take offense. Like he spit on Stan Musial's grave.

This "Cardinal Way" nonsense gets old in a hurry, and thankfully was much less a running narrative this postseason. The Cardinals and their fans should be proud of their success without trying really hard to look down their noses at the Dodgers because they had a fat payroll and are from L.A.

We get that they take their baseball seriously. What else is there to do in St. Louis besides watch baseball and drink bad beer? People from L.A. don't even want to visit St. Louis. Maybe they should make chocolate.

Now it's the Cardinals versus the Giants in the NLCS, and the only thing that could make this less bearable for a Dodgers fan is if the Yankees were awaiting the winner in the World Series.

Hard to imagine becoming a Royals or Orioles fan, but that's the current lot in life for followers of the boys in very blue. For now, go neutral in the NLCS and we'll wake you when it's time for the World Series.